Guatemala: Little Colombia?

The BBC today published a brief article on the growing drug trafficking problem in Guatemala. But as scary as the problem itself may be, the implied "answer" from the United States may be scarier still!

Guatemala needs to fight the growing power of drug gangs or it could become a "mini Colombia", the US Drugs Enforcement Administration has warned.

The DEA representative in Guatemala, Michael O'Brien, said that the agency was worried about the situation. He added that drug gangs were attempting to influence the public and the Guatemalan government.

Last week, the country's top anti-drugs official, Adan Castillo, was arrested in the US on drug trafficking charges.

Experts say that 75% of the cocaine smuggled to the US passes through Guatemala.

"If they don't change things, they could have a mini-Colombia here," Michael O'Brien told reporters in Guatemala City.

Guatemalan drug gangs concern US
BBC. 23 November 2005

The problem with the United States declaring Guatemala a "mini Colombia" is that it opens the doors to a Guatemalan version of the U.S.'s "Plan Colombia".

What is "Plan Colombia", and why would a "Plan Guatemala" be a bad idea? Here's an excerpt from a recent article published in ZNet Magazine:

Albert Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If he were alive today, he would consider US policy toward Colombia insane.

Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Colombia, the region's largest recipient of US aid, where she praised Plan Colombia as "very successful." In 2000, Congress passed "Plan Colombia" with the stated purpose of reducing the supply of cocaine to the US. Five years and $4 billion later (80 percent, or $3.2 billion, of which went to Colombian military), Plan Colombia is set to expire. But the Bush Administration has already requested $600 million in the budget to continue funding it. As Rice said on her visit to Colombia, "You don't stop in midstream on something that has been very effective."

But exactly how "effective" has Plan Colombia been? Before the American people are asked to continue spending $2 million a day on aid to Colombia, they should take a closer at the Plan.

If Plan Colombia was intended to reduce the supply of cocaine, raise its cost, and therefore, cut the numbers of users, then the program has been a costly failure.

After five years, the price of cocaine is lower, and the number of cocaine users is growing. According to a recent unclassified report from the National Drug Intelligence Center, "key indicators of domestic cocaine availability show stable or slightly increased availability in drug markets throughout the country."

A New Plan for Colombia
by David Martin, ZNet. 02 May 2005

But the damage isn't limited to spending obscene amounts of U.S. tax-payer funds on an un-winnable war.

It took only eight months after 9/11 for Congress to expand US engagement from fighting drugs to "a unified campaign against narcotics trafficking [and] against activities by organizations designated as terrorist organizations."

On the grounds of fighting terrorism, seventy Special Forces troops were sent to Arauca province in January to begin training Colombian soldiers to hunt down guerrillas and protect an oil pipeline partly owned by Occidental Petroleum.

Failed 'Plan' in Colombia
by Peter Clark, The Nation. 31 July 2003.

Bottom line: In Guatemala, a country that is still struggling to repair the social fabric ripped apart by decades of counterinsurgent violence, the security forces need to be reformed, not reinforced.

And frankly, if there's one government that has raised doubts about its intentions and abilities to "fix" the internal affairs of other countries, it's the current Bush administration.

So what can be done to help Colombia and Guatemala recover from the corruption and destruction caused by the drug trade? Well, it might seem simplistic but the drug trade exists to feed a need.... a need that is greatly concentrated in the United States.

As the ZNet article concludes:

In 1994, the US Army and the Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned a RAND study, which concluded that treatment for heavy cocaine users is twenty-three times more effective than drug crop eradication and other source-country programs. The study recommended that "if an additional dollar is going to be spent on drug control, it should be spent on treatment, not on a supply-control program."

In other words, the billions spent on aid to Colombia would be better spent on providing treatment to the millions of drug abusers in the US who need treatment, but do not receive it. That money could prevent drug abuse through education as well as address the social conditions, like poverty and unemployment, which make communities vulnerable to high rates of drug abuse.

So if the United States really wants to help Guatemala with its "drug problem" it would do well by focusing on its own drug problem. If there is one thing that neoliberal, hard-core capitalists like Bush & Co. can understand, it is the law of supply and demand.

And look... I made it all the way through this analysis on the War on Drugs without once mentioning the rumors of President Bush's personal cocaine use.

(Ooops.)

Tags: Guatemala, Drugs, Colombia, DEA, Cocaine

Posted by elcanche at November 23, 2005 05:06 PM